Well, what are his tweets like? I'm imagining links to kittens dressed as cardinals and the regular casual name-dropping of God. There has been none of that so far. He hasn't tweeted.

The Pope's a lurker then? Yep. He's just amassing followers until 12 December.

And then what? He's going to bust out the topical puns? Unlikely.

Instagram photos of him and the Holy Ghost at trendy parties? Less likely still.

Well, what is he going to tweet then? According to the Vatican's senior media adviser: "We are going to get a spiritual message. The pope is not going to be walking around with a BlackBerry or an iPad and no one is going to be putting words into the pope's mouth. He will tweet what he wants to tweet."

But what does he want to tweet? Eventually, regular highlights of his weekly general audience and Sunday blessings, the occasional homily on a major Catholic holiday and papal reactions to natural disasters and other accidents God needs to make a statement on.

And on 12 December? He's planning to kick things off with a papal Q&A. His new digital followers will be asking him questions over the next eight days, and a lucky handful will be chosen to receive a full, 140-character answer from God's main man.